In the commercial culture and harvesting of oysters, there has been a movement away from natural cultivation terrain and conditions to systems which create more favourable conditions. Thus, oysters have been cultivated in enclosures for protecting the oysters from predators but such enclosures must be cleaned at certain intervals depending on the prevailing conditions to provide for sufficient water circulation therethrough. During the initial stages of their growth, the apertures in the enclosures need to be sufficiently small but during the later stages of their growth, the oysters are more conveniently contained in containers having larger apertures and at the same time they require more space. Thus, it is necessary to have regular access to the containers for cleaning purposes, as well as for removal and transfer to larger apertured containers for effective cultivation.
Such operations are time consuming and labour intensive. It is, accordingly, an object of the present invention to provide a culture system and method which creates a larger throughput of product and is less labour intensive and, at the same time, allows easy access to the apertured culture containers.
It is also an object of the invention to provide an apertured culture container which allows for easy handling and an increased flow through of product, as well as apparatus for handling the container.